Night Terror
by Lalacier
Summary: The ache in the back of his throat and the teeth marks in the knuckles he'd shoved in his mouth told him it had been him who'd screamed.


It tore through the silence like a knife through butter, chasing the calm from the corners and the peace from the night. It rang out, clear as a knell, and jolted him awake, ears pounding with the echoes of it. Raw and deep and primal, it stirred in his chest, tighter and tighter.

The ache in the back of his throat and the teeth marks in the knuckles he'd shoved in his mouth told him it had been him who'd screamed.

He squeezed his eyes shut, fisted his hands in the bedsheets. He was here. _Here_. He was in Edge. He was at home. He was safe. Marlene and Denzel were sleeping in the room across the corridor (if he'd not woken them); Tifa was down the hall (not sleeping, because he would definitely have woken her). He was not—not _there_.

(on the drought-cracked cliffs on the outskirts of midgar, where, finally, rain fell in sheets around them and washed the bl—)

His stomach knotted and turned. The tendons in his forearms corded; he gripped the sheets until his knuckles whitened and his fingertips numbed. His ears pulsed with the rhythm of his breathing, short, heavy puffs of air, a breath he couldn't quite catch.

_ Quiet, keep quiet… _Even now, even with the familiarity of the springs beneath him and the sound of the city streets and that constant loop—I'm home, I'm home, I'm _home_—the pressure built and built in his throat, aching to burst again into a crescendo of pure, unadulterated rawness.

He couldn't remember what he'd dreamed. Oh, he could have a pretty good guess: it was just a matter of playing eeny-meeny-miney-mo with any number of recurring themes.

(like flames and heat and screams and—)

But though the images faltered (and he pushed and pushed them away), the tightening in his chest and his throat and his stomach—

(oh god oh god oh god, _breathe_—)

—all of that didn't ease. It twisted and pulled. It shook him from his very core. His hands trembled in a way he only remembered from Nibelheim winters but the sheets clung to his back, sticky and wet.

Why couldn't he catch his breath? God, he felt so—

His stomach roiled. He gathered as much strength as he could muster and pushed himself from the bed, pushed himself out the door, pushed himself down the corridor on unsteady feet, pushed open the bathroom door and threw himself to his knees. It would have knocked the breath from him if only he could catch it in the first place.

(he'd always hated being sick, ever since hojo— since the poisoning—)

There was nothing left. There was nothing, and still his stomach knotted and twisted. He pulled the chain and rested his head against his forearm. His whole body shook. He felt so weak. _Pathetic_.

When he heard feet creeping out into the hallway, his face flushed hot and red.

"Cloud…" came Marlene's quiet voice. He heard the way it shook and trembled. The way he'd screamed, all the noise he'd made—he'd frightened her.

He raised his head a little, as much as he could manage. She clung tight to Denzel's hand, half in the hall, half still in her room. "It's okay, Marlene. I'm okay."

She gave her head a little shake, chewing her lip. "I'll get Tifa!" she cried, running down the hall before he could stop her.

Cloud dropped his head in his hands again, taking a shaking breath in. His pulse still raced, his fingers still trembled, but the nausea was receding, finally. He should have just stayed in bed, fought it back. A pinkish light tinged the tiles; dawn was rising. It must have been four, five in the morning, and he'd woken everyone up. Tifa wouldn't go back to sleep now, he knew, though a full day's shift in the bar was ahead. Marlene and Denzel were supposed to be going out with Barret when he arrived later on, though they'd probably oversleep and miss out now. Huffing a sigh, he rubbed at his temples. One of these days he'd keep his shit together long enough to not ruin everything.

He felt a hand between his shoulder blades. It was a light touch at first, but when Cloud lifted his head again and turned to look at Denzel, it pressed harder, rubbing circles on his back.

"Is that better?" Denzel asked quietly. His hair was mussed, sticking up every which way, and his eyes were heavy with sleep, but he gave a small smile. "Marlene was scared it was the Stigma, or something, again."

Cloud shook his head. "It's not."

"I know."

Denzel didn't stop. He massaged circles with his palm, shoulder blade to shoulder blade; he switched to fingertips, up and down his spine. Cloud closed his eyes. He felt like lead, heavy and stiff, but with each pass of Denzel's hand the weight on his chest lifted.

"I have nightmares too. I always felt better when Dad rubbed my back. It used to make me fall straight back to sleep." Denzel poked him in the side, laughing softly. "Wait, you haven't fallen asleep, have you?"

He hadn't. But he could. Where there was a pounding in his ears before, there was the quiet of early morning outside, the rustle of cotton against his back where Denzel continued his ministrations, low words of comfort from Tifa's room down the hall. He could breathe in and fill his lungs, hold it and release it without shuddering; none of the gasping swallows of air he could only manage before. His pulse had slowed from its frenzied staccato to not quite his usual rhythm, but it was getting there. Suddenly, he could barely remember the sheer panic that had so violently consumed him before. The only thing left to tell of it was his exhaustion.

Perhaps he'd even drifted off for a couple of seconds. The next time he opened his eyes, Tifa was at his other side, holding him at the elbow. "It's alright," she insisted gently. "Can you stand?"

Cloud nodded. With Tifa at one side, Denzel at the other elbow, he pushed himself up, held himself steady against Tifa's hold. "Thanks," he breathed. "I'm alright now."

"Then let's get you back to bed."

One at either side, Denzel and Tifa walked him, slowly, one step at a time, back to his room. There, Marlene, lips pressed tightly in what Cloud suspected to be shame of her fear earlier, gave a solemn nod of her head as she pushed open his door. "We'll look after you, Cloud!"

Placing a hand atop her head, he smiled. "I know."


End file.
